But we're not going to persuade each other. Both too committed to our current positions to concede. If you think Prust is worth a million more per year than his play as hockey player or position in the depth chart warrants because he's tough that's your prerogative. But I think you want to invest in tiger repelling rocks.

better "waisting" 1M$ of a 70M$ cap on a guy who is among the best in the league in his role (bottom-6 gritty player who can actually play meaningful minutes and defend his teammates at all costs), then "waisting" 2-3-4M$ as we have in recent years on "skilled" players who perform as poorly as Gomez/Kaberle/Bourque.

2.5M$ is steep, but if he plays the way he has the past 2 years in N.Y (or even continues to improve, b/c this guy has steadily improved over the past 4-5 seasons... he's lightyears ahead of the player he was in Calgary a few seasons ago), then he will be giving our team an element we sorely needed and at a cap hit that won't be very difficult to account for.

Gomez or Kaberle under performing on massive cap hits hurts far more than a 2-3M$ player under performing (and this assumes he will underperform) b/c it seriously impacts the ability to spend elsewhere.

i'm a believer that every dollar counts, and a bad contract is a bad contract, but I think Prust has at least a decent shot at giving us solid value at his cap hit, and the downside if he doesn't isn't big enough to warrant excessive "negative nancy" comments on signing day.